Category Archives: Running

Today was a victory. I feel this way, even though I had to work on my off day.

Last night, I had trouble sleeping. So I wrote a letter to my love while Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead was playing in the background. I’ve seen it before, and wanted to watch something to give me a kick in the ass. Mission accomplished.

I woke up this morning and had a green juice–meant to have some coffee too, but was running late so I just had a few sips. On my lunch break at work, I went to try on some cross trainers. I ended up having a carrot/orange juice blend and another sip or few of coffee due to time constraints. After leaving work, I went to buy the shoes and grabbed a five fruit frenzy from Jamba Juice. Tasty stuff.

I drank my smoothie on the patio at Pazzo’s (a pizza pub) without sipping a beer or taking a bite of anyone’s food. After sitting with my friends for a few minutes, I had the strangest itch–

I wanted to run.

I rushed home, changed into my workout gear and new shoes, and took off. Sure, I wasn’t the fastest, but I worked my ass off. Hills, grass, gravel, concrete, I tried it all. Nobody pushing me, nobody coaching me,just me. Little Voice wanted to go home. And he got his wish…after an hour of the hardest work I’ve done so far.

Surprisingly, I felt great when I got home, despite running without having really eaten all day. I did put some food in my belly, as well as some green goodness and a few sips of chia gel. I feel great at the moment, and I’m sure that I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.

I nearly committed assisted suicide today, and by that I mean I went to the gym with my personal Kevorkian friend Travis.

A bit of background on Travis: I’ve known him since we became friends in college. We introduced ourselves after a hilarious misunderstanding–somehow, an inquiry as to whether I’d purchased a pet was misheard as an inquiry as to whether I’d had sex on a couch in the lobby of our dorm.

Travis isn’t and has never really been a big guy, but over the past two years or so he’s reduced his body fat and increased his muscle. He’s also studying to be an oral surgeon, which requires a hell of a lot of studying of anatomy, which in turn means that he knows the 768 jillion or so micro-parts of your body that move when you’re doing the barbell bench press. Valuable knowledge when you’re aiming to alter your body composition.

We had a chance meetup (at a liquor store) today, and decided that we’d go to the gym together. I usually go to the gym alone or with other friends, and I had never worked out with Travis before, so I was excited. This will be cool, I thought, we’ll go in, do some cardio, and be done after a little sweat.

Dead. Fucking. Wrong.

After thirty minutes of somewhat brisk cardio, we made our way over to the track. I thought that we were going to do some laps walking to cool down, then peace out. Fuck no. Instead, we did some interval training. Walk, jog, walk, jog and try not to die, walk, jog and then jog this lap harder so I don’t have to jog another lap oh my god how am I breathing.

If I were a stupid fuck, I’d say Travis was trying to kill me. But I’m smarter than that, and I know that Travis was pushing me to become better (a side effect being that he nearly killed me). I did laps today that, had Travis not been there to say “no, you can do this, I would never have thought about walking them, let alone jogging them (sometimes at a slightly quicker pace). And I’m thankful for it, because as a beginner I don’t always have that confidence inside me when I go to the gym alone. As a result, I sometimes do a little more than the bare minimum and get out. There might be more of those days ahead, but they won’t come soon, thanks to the motivational kick in the ass I got today.